Restaurant BioM

Short Hair Sustainability

According to the menu at BioM in Copenhagen's quaint Fredericiagade neighborhood, the restaurant is an “eco-eatery where life is experienced as a combination of interdependent relationships between plants and animals.”

This is Copenhagen’s poster child for upscale farm-to-fork food.

“We’re so lucky that our guests have an opinion that they’re not just cattle,” says owner Brian Johansen, as he pulls up a chair constructed from recycled plastic bottles to join me. I like Brian and I love his bad ass eco-attitude. I’m especially enamored with his bacon and mushroom risotto.

Brian says he believes in “short hair sustainability" versus the “hippie kind,” which helps attract a lot of local executives around town. Such as Martin Porsgaard, director of environment for SAS Airlines, who pulls up on his bike to join us for lunch. We talk for a long time about how SAS pilots are required to lay off the pedal after taking off and before landing to save petrol. It adds a few minutes to travel time and the pilots didn’t like the idea at first. Like, not at all. But Porsgaard says they’re coming around.

After lunch I ask Johansen why he’s so passionate about sustainable food.

“Because it’s fun,” he deadpans.

And I think to myself, there’s the future. That’s why sustainability has legs. It’s now a lifestyle choice for so many creative, thoughtful people across the globe like this young chef from Denmark changing the world with his risotto.